The pain was evident on the faces Wednesday of the young boys still dealing with the shooting death of their beloved coach.

Daryl Minor, a 34-year-old father of five, was shot and killed two days earlier as he walked from a restaurant to his car at 124th and Ashland Avenue in Calumet Park.

"Now we have to step in his footsteps and be the best we can be," said Cordell Lott, one of the players on the Amateur Athletic Union boys basketball team that Minor coached. "He really tried to discipline us to be young men on and off the court.

The youngsters gathered with Minor's widow to plead for information about his killer.

"I knew that he didn't deserve it. I knew that he didn't see it coming. I knew that he wouldn't have went there if he knew that it was going to jeopardize his family," said Minor's wife, Fonda Minor.

She said her husband's life showed the possibilities of making positive changes. He left behind a criminal record at age 16, earned a degree in theology and eventually became a business owner, a loving husband and a basketball coach.

"He had a certain energy and spirit, that once he came into your life you changed," said Reginald Brooks, president of Region Elite basketball.

Minor's family said the coach got into an argument with someone at the same restaurant where he was killed just a few weeks ago.

No arrests have been made. Calumet Park declined to comment on the case Wednesday, saying only that it was still under investigation.